Absent such drama, journalists in Paris initially focused on a “crisis” narrative, driven by the impacts of Storm Desmond across the UK and warnings over sea level rise, drought and famine from development NGOs.

In the second week of the summit, coverage slowly switched to the likelihood of an outcome but still, explicit coverage of the nuts and bolts of negotiations was thin.

“What was of particular interest was only 6% of articles referred to corporations and only 3% to industry bodies,” said Moore, offering a useful insight for business and climate strategists.

His picture is one where to a great extent governments and civil society dominated and – perhaps – controlled the narrative through persistent and effective outreach to journalists.

Also interesting is the relative lack of space offered to climate sceptics in the mainstream press, in direct contrast to previous headline UN climate summits.

Protests from civil society appealed to media who had embedded video and pictures at the core of their strategy. Visual stunts involving mermaids were lapped up by Buzzfeed and Vice. Campaigners take note.

But for print-heavy operations these and other organised “actions” generally failed to make much of a dent, perhaps making a paragraph in a story rather than a lead.

The study did not explore the consumption of the stories published, but given all digital newsrooms use analytics to watch the success – or failure – of articles in real time, output tells its own story.

Much as the public or campaigners may assume stories are written in the “public interest”, editors rarely commission articles that they know will not be read.

But in a fragmenting digital landscape the influence of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, WhatsApp and other social media channels yet to be launched is fast growing, it said.

Governments are already seeking to bypass journalists with orchestrated online “interviews” and announcements on twitter, while groups like Greenpeace are building their own news platforms.

Globally digital inequality persists even as platforms proliferate. There is a “widening information gap” between those online and offline, observes BBC News director James Harding in the same report.

That points to a need for outlets covering climate change to ensure they can penetrate audiences without regular internet or mobile access. It’s often these communities in Africa and Asia that need the information most.

There are, Harding added, “uneven patterns in the fewer stories that seem to get even bigger audiences and the many more that do not”.

It seems keeping up with the Kardashians is likely to be a challenge for some time to come, even for global warming.